Cold Turkey on Black Friday

Flash Fiction by Bern Sy Moss 

Almost, one year. Black Friday marks the day my wife, Janie, disappeared. I remembered her saying, “early bird gets the worm,” on that morning as she pecked at my forehead with a gesture that almost resembled an actual kiss before she headed off to the shopping mall.

“Birdbrain,” I mumbled when I knew she couldn’t hear, resigned that dinner would be the same as last year’s day after Thanksgiving dinner. Left over cold turkey—deli turkey—canned cranberry sauce, and my choice of a canned vegetable. My indiscretions cost me dearly. Marrying my secretary after throwing aside my wife of twenty years, who always made me a real Thanksgiving dinner, left me with little content with Janie. It was more like contempt.

The police scanned through the videos from the shopping mall and the locals put up flyers, but it didn’t take long before everyone lost interest and the searching stopped. After all, it was holiday season and consequently, the matter needed to be put aside for more festive indulgences.

***

I started calling my ex-wife, a month after Janie disappeared. At first, Sally hung up on me, but the last time, we talked. I told her I made a huge mistake when I divorced her. She called me every name that any philandering husband could and should be called. Her last words to me, “rot in hell, Guy.”

I had come to accept it was over between us with no reconciliation possible and now a year later, the Monday before Thanksgiving to be exact, I was contemplating another cold Thanksgiving deli dinner when the doorbell rang.

Sally repeatedly said she wanted nothing to do with me, but there she was at my front door.

I hugged her and planted a kiss on her lips.

She pulled back and slapped my face. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

“Probably since you found out about Janie,” I said. “I’m so sorry. Sally, but in my defense, I paid for it. Janie was spending me blind. I don’t miss her. I miss you.”

“Why didn’t you just divorce her then? You seemed to have no problem divorcing me.”

“And from that I learned a valuable lesson. You got more than I thought you would. You did get a bit greedy, didn’t you? Doesn’t matter now. I love you, Sally.”

I was willing to grovel—willing to beg—if I could get her to stay, at least long enough, to dish out a real Thanksgiving dinner. I looked forward to those dinners every year—the turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and to die for stuffing.

“Sally, please forgive me. You know you want to, otherwise you wouldn’t be here,” I said. “I wish everything could be like it used to be with you. Could we do that again, have Thanksgiving with a real turkey? Janie was as cold as her cold turkey.”

“Cold turkey?’

“Sliced deli turkey breast,” I said.

“That’s sad. There was a turkey in the big freezer in the basement when I left. She could have made that for you.”

“Actually, she didn’t know how to cook. She was better at other things.”

“I can imagine,” Sally said.

I sighed, remembering the Janie that enticed me in the first place, but the initial allure soon faded as Janie morphed and emerged as the crazed insatiable shopper.

“Sally, I didn’t know how much I missed you until you were gone. Please don’t leave me again.”

“I didn’t leave you, you fool, you left me,” she said and moved on to inspecting the other rooms slamming doors as she went, then down to the basement. She saved the kitchen for last. I could hear her slamming the cabinet doors indicating more displeasure at what she found accompanied by several loud explicit comments.

She stopped slamming cabinet doors long enough to yell out to me, “What have you been eating? There’s no food in this kitchen.”

“Fast food and microwave dinners, but mostly, out of a can.”

“Out of a can? Really?”

“Janie taught me supper was only as far a way as my can opener.”

“Really?”

Sally put out her hand and said, “Give me your credit card. I’m going shopping for what I’ll need for Thanksgiving.”

Sally must have been experiencing her own kind of shopping frenzy. When she returned, we carried in bags and bags of groceries.

***

I slept late on Thursday and awoke to the familiar smells that reminded me of those pleasurable Thanksgivings before Janie came into my life.

By the time I came down to the kitchen, side dishes covered the counters. I leaned against the kitchen wall sipping the freshly brewed coffee, made just the way I liked it, as I watched Sally baste the turkey and marveled at her multi-tasking culinary abilities.

“That’s one great looking bird you bought us. How big is it” I asked.

“About twelve pounds,” Sally said and gave me an odd smirk.”

I gave her a kiss on her cheek and thought, just like old times. Nobody better than my Sally.

I had so much to be thankful for—a perfect Thanksgiving. Every dish caressed my taste buds and knowing there would be leftovers only added to the perfection.

As Sally slid the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, she said, “It wasn’t bad for an old bird, was it?”

“Old bird?” I said. “What old bird?”

“The turkey from the freezer down in the basement,” she said and smiled.

“It was that turkey?”

“What did you do, hit Janie with the frozen turkey?”

“It was handy. So, what now Sally?’

“Well, your blunt force weapon is now gone,” she said,

“Yes, best turkey you ever made.”

“You need to move her out of the freezer. Maybe bury her in the back yard. I need the space for the soups I’ll be making. Probably, butternut squash, ham and bean, and turkey.”

“Turkey soup? My favorite. You’re the best, Sally. Never leave me again.”

---

Bio: Author Bern Sy Moss has been published in several anthologies and in print and online magazines including The Yard: Crime Blog, Mystery Tribune, Woman’s World, Spinetingler Magazine, Yellow Mama, Spillwords Press and others. 

Cover photo by: Pexels

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